Despite its more than 2,500 hours of sunshine a year, the uptake of solar power in South Africa has historically been slow. This has been changing, largely thanks to Eskom’s woes and rolling power cuts. There are now 51 operational solar farms in the country. As part of SA’s independent power producer programme, they have a combined potential of almost 2,800MW.

Two-thirds of South Africa’s solar farms are in the Northern Cape, which has a solar capacity of 1,995MW.

The solar industry employed about 20,000 people in 2022. That number could grow this year, with R12-billion worth of solar panels imported into South Africa between January and June 2023.

Solar makes up just 3% of South Africa’s energy mix and the country is still far from meeting its Renewable Energy Masterplan target of 6,400MW of solar power by 2030.